[meteorite-list] Dawn Journal - May 31, 2016

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2016 20:39:59 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201606190340.u5J3e018008059_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal_05_31_16.html

Dawn journal
Dr. Marc Rayman
May 31, 2016

Dear Phodawngraphers,

Dawn is continuing to record the extraordinary sights on dwarf planet
Ceres. The experienced explorer is closer to the alien world than the
International Space Station is to Earth.

Dawn has completed more than 1,000 orbital revolutions since entering
into Ceres' gentle but firm gravitational grip in March 2015. The probe
is healthy and performing its ambitious assignments impeccably. In the
last few months, we have described how Dawn has greatly exceeded all of
its original objectives at Ceres and the excellent progress it has been
making in collecting bonus data. On schedule on May 25, the spacecraft
completed the mapping campaign it began on April 11, in which it took
photographs with the camera pointed to the left and forward as it circled
Ceres. Now it is looking to the right and forward to get another stereo
view.

In January we mentioned that, having already acquired far more measurements
with the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer than anticipated, scientists
were devoting further observations to infrared rather than visible. Now
Dawn is operating both spectrometers again. Having seen much more of Ceres
in the infrared from this low altitude than planned, mission controllers
now can afford to allocate some of the spacecraft's data storage and interplanetary
radio transmissions to visible spectra in exchange for limiting the infrared
to a few select targets. In addition, a device in the infrared spectrometer
that lowers the sensor's temperature to -307 degrees Fahrenheit (-188
degrees Celsius) is showing signs of age. (We saw here that the sensor
can detect heat. So to avoid interference from its own heat, it needs
to be cooled.) Its symptoms are not a surprise, given that the instrument
has acquired far, far more data at Vesta and Ceres than it was designed
for. It is continuing to function quite productively, but now its use
is being curtailed.
Dawn LAMO Image 95

[Image]
Dawn took this picture of canyons in Ezinu Crater from an altitude of
240 miles (385 kilometers) on April 17. (Ezinu was a Sumerian goddess
of grain.) Full image and caption. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

One of the mission's objectives was to photograph 80 percent of Ceres???
vast landscape with a resolution of 660 feet (200 meters) per pixel. Dawn
has now photographed nearly the entirety (99.9 percent) with a resolution
of 120 feet (35 meters) per pixel. The adventurer has shown us 25 percent
more terrain than planned with 5.7 times the clarity. We can see detail
830 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope revealed.

What is the value of that much detail? The more detailed the portrait,
the better understanding geologists can obtain. Imagine the difference
(not only visually but also emotionally and socially) between seeing a
person at the opposite end of a soccer field and seeing them from five
inches (12 centimeters) away.

The pictures speak quite eloquently (and succinctly) for themselves, but
let's take a look at one of the many uses of these sharp photographs:
determining the age of geological features.

In December, we gave an approximate age of 80 million years for Occator
Crater, site of the famous "bright spots" (or famously bright spots).
It takes more than an experienced geological eye to estimate such an age.

[Image]
Occator Crater is shown in this mosaic of photos Dawn took at its lowest
altitude of 240 miles (385 kilometers). The crater is 57 miles (92 kilometers)
in diameter. Go to the full image to see exquisite details of the bright
areas as well as fractures in the crater floor and other intriguing features.
Note how few craters are within Occator or the area around it. Scientists
can translate the number and size of craters into an age. From pictures
taken at higher altitudes, they estimate Occator is 80 million years old,
as explained below. That age will be refined with these sharper pictures,
which reveal smaller craters. Full image and caption. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI

Now don't forget that we are trying to ascertain the age, but we are going
to get there on a long and winding path, mostly because it's an opportunity
to touch on some fun and interesting topics.

To begin, we go back in time, not quite 80 million years, to the Apollo
program. Astronauts returned from the moon with many treasures, including
842 pounds (382 kilograms) of lunar material collected on six missions.
In addition, three Soviet robotic Luna spacecraft came back with a total
of 11 ounces (0.3 kilograms).

Earth's total inventory of lunar samples is larger. By comparing the chemical
composition of that material with a great many meteorites, scientists
have identified nearly 120 pounds (54 kilograms) of meteorites that were
blasted from the moon by asteroid impacts and then landed on our planet.

Other meteorites are known to have originated on Mars. The principal method
by which that connection was made was comparison of gasses trapped in
the meteorites with the known constituents of the Martian atmosphere as
measured by the two Viking spacecraft that landed there 40 years ago.
Scientists thus have 276 pounds (125 kilograms) of Martian material.

Of course, unlike the Apollo and Luna samples, the lunar and Martian meteorites
were selected for us by nature's randomness from arbitrary locations that
are not easy to determine.

The moon and Mars are two of only three (extant) extraterrestrial bodies
that are clearly established as the source of specific meteorites. The
third is Vesta, the fascinating protoplanet Dawn explored in 2011-2012.
That world is farther away even than Mars, and yet we have 3,090 pounds
(1,402 kilograms) from Vesta, or more than 11 times as much as from the
red planet and more than three times as much as from the moon. We reflected
on these meteorites during our travel from Vesta to Ceres.

It is thanks to Dawn's detailed measurements of the composition of Vesta
that scientists were able to clinch the connection with the meteorites
that were under study in terrestrial laboratories. The impact of an asteroid
perhaps 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in diameter more than one
billion years ago excavated Vesta's Rheasilvia Crater. It left behind
a yawning basin more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) across, a mountain
more than twice the height of Mt. Everest, and a network of about 90 canyons
with dimensions rivaling those of the Grand Canyon. And it launched a
tremendous amount of material into space. Some of it settled back onto
Vesta, resurfacing much of the southern hemisphere, but some of it departed
with so much energy that it escaped Vesta's gravitational hold. Some of
the biggest pieces liberated by that tremendous impact are now visible
as small asteroids known as vestoids. And some of the small pieces eventually
made their way to the part of the solar system where many of our readers
(perhaps including you) reside. After Earth's gravity took hold of any
of those wandering interplanetary rocks and pulled them in, they became
meteors upon entering the atmosphere, meteorites upon hitting the ground,
and keys to studying the second largest object in the main asteroid belt
upon entering laboratories. One esteemed scientist on the Dawn team opined
that with Dawn's detailed data and our Vestan samples, Vesta joined the
ranks of the moon and Mars as the only extraterrestrial bodies that have
been geologically explored in a rigorous way.

With so many meteorites from Vesta, why have we not linked any to Ceres?
Is it because the rocks didn't get blasted away in the first place, or
they didn't make it to the vicinity of Earth or to the ground, or we have
not recognized that they are in our collections? While there are some
ideas, the answer is not clear. For that matter, although Vesta and Ceres
are the two largest residents of the main asteroid belt, why have we not
tied meteorites to any of the smaller but still sizable bodies there?
We will return to this question in a future Dawn Journal, but for now,
let's get back to the question of how Dawn's pictures help with measuring
the ages of features on Ceres.

[Image]
Dawn took this picture on March 22 from an altitude of 240 miles (385
kilometers). The impact that formed the crater in the upper left deposited
material outside the crater, partially covering the smaller craters that
were already there. The area on the lower right of the picture, including
the other large crater in this scene, has many more small craters and
so must be older. Sunlight in this photograph is coming from the right,
so all the craters are dark on the right side where their walls descend
into shadow. The crater walls on the left face the sun and so are illuminated.
Look closely around the young crater and on its floor to see many very
small features with the opposite lighting: they are bright on the right
and dark on the left. Unlike all the craters, they are not depressions
but rather are very large boulders, catching sunlight on the right side.
(Each pixel in this picture is 120 feet, or 35 meters.) The tremendous
punch that excavated the young crater must have produced these boulders.
The Dawn project does not recommend doing the same thing at home. Full
image and caption. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Scientists have measured the relative abundance of different atomic species
in the Apollo and Luna samples from different locations. Elements with
known radioactive decay rates serve as clocks, providing a record of how
old a sample is. This process enabled scientists to pin down the ages
of many craters on the moon, and from that, they developed a history of
the rate at which craters of different sizes formed.

During some periods in the moon's history, it was pelted with more interplanetary
debris, forming more craters, than at other times. This uneven history
is a reflection of solar-system-wide events. For example, it seems that
the giant planets of the outer solar system jockeyed for their orbital
positions around the sun about four billion years ago. Their gravitational
jostling over the course of about 300 million years may have sent a flurry
of material into the inner solar system, where the moon recorded the bombardments.

The moon lives at one astronomical unit (1 AU, which is 93 million miles
or 150 million kilometers) from the sun (because that's where Earth is).
Scientists can extrapolate the cratering history the moon experienced
to other locations in the solar system, so they can calculate what other
bodies should have been subjected to. Ceres lives between 2.6 and 3.0
AU from the sun.

[Image]
Dawn observed this scene on March 28 from an altitude of 240 miles (385
kilometers). The prominent crater on the left lies on the western rim
of Azacca Crater, which goes vertically through the center of the picture.
(Azacca is a Haitian god of agriculture.) With a diameter of 31 miles
(50 kilometers) Azacca, is too large to fit in a single picture from this
low altitude. Note the many deposits of bright material, which is likely
some kind of salt. Full image and caption. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Scientists count the number and size of craters in an area of interest,
like inside Occator Crater and on the blanket of ejected material surrounding
it. (See the picture above.) With their mathematical description of how
many impacts should have occurred over time, they can estimate how long
the surface has been exposed and accumulating craters. Although the ages
have not been computed yet, compare the third and fourth pictures presented
in April for a clear illustration of areas that are of very different
ages.

The method of determining the age involves many subtleties we did not
touch on here, and there are many complicating factors that limit the
accuracy. But the dating results are improved substantially by including
smaller craters in the count.

It is readily apparent in pictures of Ceres, Vesta, the moon, and elsewhere
that small craters are more prevalent than large ones. There has simply
been more small stuff than large stuff flying around in the solar system
and crashing into surfaces to make craters. There are more bits like sand
grains than pebbles, more pebbles than boulders, more small boulders than
big boulders, etc.

Extending Dawn's photographic documentation of the Cerean landscapes to
finer resolution provides the means to develop a better census of the
population of craters, yielding a better measure of the age.

Dawn's bonus observations thus give us not only a sharper view of the
dwarf planet beneath it today but also a more accurate view of the mysterious
world's past. As this extraordinary journey through space and time continues,
next month, we will look to the future.

Dawn is 240 miles (385 kilometers) from Ceres. It is also 3.42 AU (318
million miles, or 512 million kilometers) from Earth, or 1,400 times as
far as the moon and 3.38 times as far as the sun today. Radio signals,
traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take 57 minutes
to make the round trip.
Received on Sat 18 Jun 2016 11:39:59 PM PDT